


Crimʃon Spell Volume V(ish) – Bondʃ of Paʃʃion

by memetique



Series: Crimʃon Spell Volumes(ish) [1]
Category: Crimson Spell
Genre: Adventure, Fantasy, Humor, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-24
Updated: 2014-10-24
Packaged: 2018-02-22 10:38:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2504792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/memetique/pseuds/memetique
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world of Crimson Spell does not, to our knowledge, travel through space on the back of a turtle, but if it did, the turtle's sex would not only be known – there would, in fact, be thorough diagrams of it. Volume V(ish) goes off the canon rails right after the actual Volume IV, so if you haven't read that far, you probably won't enjoy this very much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. After the Toll of Midmorning

Valdrigr Alsvieth, pride of his country and saviour of his people, awoke with a jerk and ripped his bodice, "Hav- "

"You, young lady, are **so** grounded!"

Vald instinctively cringed then caught himself, "Yes, Nanny, I know. Is there a stream around here?"

The pink one pointed yonder and sputtered at his retreated back, "It's extremely cold which serves you right **and I'm not your Nanny!** "

 _'Well, no, she would have approved of the dress,'_ thought Vald with sudden nostalgia for his ruffle-loving governess. Although she too would have grounded him for making such a mess of it, _'And I'm definitely not a lady, not after-'_ He increased his stride to an unladylike lope in the direction of Rulca's disapproving digit. The stream was thankfully as cold as threatened and Vald distracted himself with its chill until he deemed himself to be cleansed of body and mind or, at least, sufficiently numb. He very nearly managed to resolutely dress without getting tangled in his own britches or sleeves or nearby shrubs.

Rulca and Halrein eyed the prince as he stomped back into camp, tripped over his bags and blinked at them as if wondering who they were and what they were doing there. With visible effort, he pulled his mind out of the mire it had fallen into, catalogued them then let his gaze casually search the camp with unconscious longing.

"He's not here," Halrein quickly informed him before Rulca could finish drawing breath for what promised to be a lengthy tirade on the devious devices of wizards and the guileless gullibility of princes. Halrein had already grimly weathered the original and sequel of the blessed bunny's trilogy of injured propriety and didn't feel up to the grande finale. "And Mars is foraging for breakfast. He may even bring us some." That, at least, was some small relief. Nobody wanted to be the one to Explain Things to him.

"What, in all the hells, is taking him so long?" Vald suddenly snapped.

"If you're that hungry there's-" Halrein broke off as Vald blushed. "Uhm-"

"The moronic mage is still at the castle deciding which loot he wants as his 'fee'," Rulca pounced on the opening left by Halrein's fumble and rammed a lemon grove's worth of acid disapproval through it.

"Speaking of fees," Vald segued with ostensive subtly, "how much did that resurrection spell cost Havi? I mean," he fidgeted, "did it weaken him? Did I- I mean, did **it** do him any permanent damage?"

"Don't waste another heartbeat worrying about that," Rulca soothed, "you're the one who suffered the most, poor thing. Halrein even tore your beautiful wing."

"My … win-" Vald stared.

"Just so we're clear, I wasn't the only one who injured you then," Halrein glared at the increasingly puce Rulca before continuing with a touch of pride and a complete absence tact, "and it's not the demonic energy I transferred from yourself to Halvir that's going to damage him in anyway since I purified it with my Ring of Depletion (Level III), thus rendering it harmless – even beneficial, actually – but the energy you tw- **oomph!** "

"Clearly, you're light-headed from lack of food. Chew on that lovely pine cone," Rulca chirped.

"What about Havi and-?"

"Vald, really, don't worry about it. Havi's not worth one wrinkle on your perfect face. Besides he's probably having the time of his life right now pawing through that lord's collection – his only worry being how much he can carry. That place is practically like heaven for him and, frankly, the only one he'll be allowed into," the celestial Rulca twinkled beatifically.

"THAT COMPLETE AND UTTER MORON!" Vald vigorously berated his wizard as he lunged for his scabbard revelling in the double thrill of righteous outrage and thoughtless action. He had to get to Havi **right now** to save him, **again** , if only so he could personally tell him, **at length** , that, **once more** , he was being an avaricious, asinine **ass**!

"Wha-"

"Va-"

"It's so perfect! **For him**! Don't you see?"

Halrein and Rulca blinked at the prince as he readied his horse – suddenly the only one with a purpose in an expanding puddle of bewilderment.

"It's a trap. A perfect Havi trap! They failed in getting me to kill him so now they're trying to SEPARATE US!"

* * *

Halvir Hroptr, scourge of maledictions, hexes and jinxes, collector of all things rare, weird and magical, cursed himself for, once again, falling into such an obvious trap. Drowning in ruffles and perfume, he tried fruitlessly to extricate himself from his gilded cage of cooing demoiselles. He'd ceased to put up with this sort of nonsense once he'd been thrown out of school and only the faint possibility of the most worthwhile of rewards made him submit to it now. Smiling coolly, he reminded himself to be charming and diplomatic and not turn anyone into a particularly hideous side table or matching chintzy chaise. In short, he would act the way Vald naturally managed to around people – as if they were all actually worth his while. The smile, having warmed for a moment, plummeted into a sudden ice age. The ladies found themselves drawing back, instinctively fearing extinction.

"Seigneur sorcier," a calm voice cut through nervous giggles, "mon seigneur is awaiting the honour of your presence in his vault."

Halvir blinked at the housekeeper blankly.

"You expressed great interest in mon seigneur's collection," she hinted.

"Of course." Not for the first time, Halvir wondered if dying had affected his brain. **Of course** he had to peruse Cavanel's collection. Of course. That's why he was **still** here and not with-

"Seigneur sorcier, this way please." Madame Vivienne had held her position at Vaala castle for far longer than the current lord had held his – years of service kept her smile veiled as the wizard executed a half turn from the entirely wrong direction in which he was striding and strode, with equally great authority, in the direction she'd indicated. Years of observing while serving told her she needn't bother with tact – this one wouldn't notice her amusement and wouldn't care if he did. She'd had to go and fetch this vision of masculine magnificence herself to keep her maids from coming to blows over who would get to snatch the prize from underneath the stuck-up noses of the demoiselles and escort him **all the way** across the castle. Madame Vivienne discreetly eyed her charge and – all those many long years notwithstanding – enjoyed the view as much any of those twittering nitwits. Although, unlike them, she knew with seasoned certainty that when something seems too good to be true, it usually is. Mildly envious gaze travelling up the cascade of silver before her, Vivienne recalled a saying older than even herself – now almost forgotten in the Empire – about the length of a wizard's hair being proportional to his power. She'd always thought it akin to what they say about the size of a man's feet – eyes idly fell to the soles of unaccountably high-heeled boots … oh, my – but now she wondered how, in all the hells, this head of ridiculously long hair had been allowed out of the capital.

"Mon seigneur, the sorcerer as you requested," Madame Vivienne announced than took her leave as her fool of a master welcomed yet another magical ornament into his vault in complete ignorance of the true nature of its power.

"Ah, Halvir, old boy, come in, come in. Hate to tear you away from the ladies – hoho – but it's so good to finally have someone who understands the true value of my collection almost as well as I do!" Halvir caught his sneer just in time as the lord of the castle burbled happily.

Halvir ran a discerning eye over the tables and display cabinets with the total confidence that, in this one respect, his lordship was entirely correct. "I might have known mon seigneur would have a Ragiav slug," he murmured without the slightest hint of a smirk at the lurid blue slug oozing morosely in its tank.

"Indeed, they're an excellent aphrodisiac, y'know, haha!" _'More like an excellent blood flow stimulant'_ , thought Halvir, _'but only the impotent would be desperate enough to ingest that blue slime.'_ "And what do you make of this little beauty," Cavanel held up a delicate cat figurine, "I'm told they're a very effective fertility charm."

"I was not aware of that," Halvir not-smirked, _'Since Necrofeline transform into a giant undead cat when placed in sand, tear apart any living thing they can get their claws into, leave the pieces in the nearest doorway and then piss fire and brimstone on the lawn.'_

"We live and learn, old boy."

"Indeed, and I must congratulate you on displaying it next to the matching canine figurine … that almost looks like it's playing fetch with a Quill of Infinite Inspiration."

"Yes, that was quite the find, and very expensive, but I've written many a love note with it – more like epics, really – and the lucky ladies were always reduced to tears if you know what I mean, hoho."

"Yes, I can't imagine why the Literary Guilds of five countries have banned them on 'agony of having thine wretched instrument shovèd up thine a-'" he froze and carefully drew his hand back from where it had brushed a shrivelled pink root. 'Heart's Desire' it was coyly called by the terminally romantic who couldn't recognize a compulsion toxin to save their lives – and often hadn't. Halvir gritted his teeth as every muscle in his body flexed to get him out of the door, out of this damned castle and into the Empire to Va … He tried to focus on giving his lungs a refresher course on the basics of breathing. Granted, the toxin had no affect on most people. Halvir almost snarled. What kind of idiot left something this dangerous just lying around out in the open?

"I'm told that this is a 'Prophetic Melon Baller', but I've yet to discover what it does," the idiot mused holding up a serrated bowl of a spoon with an unsettling handle.

Halvir glared at his host, in no mood to enlighten the lord with anything save a fireball. He cast his gaze about for a distraction from the toxin-induced half-memories-half-fantasies flooding his mind, "What's that?" he pointed to an incongruously plain crate.

"Ah, that – an acquisition of your predecessor's but he died soon after receiving it and I never did find out what it does. Perhaps, you could …"

Alarms bells finally made themselves heard through the pink haze, and Halvir barely had time to react before the world turned inside-out.


	2. Breaking Fast

Vald galloped towards the looming bulk of the mountain range separating the core of the Zenedoura Empire from the rest of the world and wondered if maybe, just maybe, he was jumping to conclusions again. He was, it dawned on him as the breathless rush of impetuous action waned with the leagues under his horse's hooves, the prince of an enemy country in his enemy's country. Without context – _i.e._ curse, exile, demonic possession, _et cetera_ – this 'incursion' of his might be construed as an act of war.

Havi would almost certainly get snotty about this.

If, on the off chance that all of his instincts were wrong and there was no trap, then he was racing headlong back **out** the gate they had all gone to so much trouble to get **in** through, into that castle sans protective flounces and bustle, and into a flaming row with the wizard. Vald could just see the look on his supercilious face.

"Hee- **ya**!"

As he approached the gate, saw the guards and began to seriously consider the logistics of getting past them without causing an international incident, the world turned outside-in and handed him the perfect diversion. Vald smiled in grim anticipation – he couldn't wait to hear what Havi would have to say about he – Vald – being right and, consequently, he – Havi – being so very **very** wrong.

* * *

When had his sweet prince gone so very **very** wrong, Rulca wondered as he trailed after Vald like a small, furry comet. He used to be such a nice boy, but now he was acting like a hell-raiser. A cross-dressing one. It was all that wicked wizard's fault. What did Vald see in him anyway? It's not like they actually **needed** him.

He finally caught sight of Vald just as he reached the dome that had engulfed the castle like a malevolent pearl. Without slowing, or the slightest sign of hesitation, Rulca's sweet prince unsheathed his sword, rose up and forward in his saddle and charged like a general bent on world conquest.

The pearl swallowed him, horse and all.

* * *

Halrein rode after the whizzing rabbit not at all certain why he was doing so. He'd recovered the ancient tomes – that is, pale **copies** of the ancient tomes – no thanks to that arrogant bastard – so, technically, he should be on his way home. He'd then explain to the Elders that the renegade exile Halvir and the demon-possessed prince of Alsvieth were blundering into the very heart of the forbidden Zenedoura Empire while he – Halrein – had completed his mission and Brought the Books Back.

He urged his horse on.

Halrein caught up to the rabbit just as he'd flung his fuzzy body against the pearly barrier for the last time and slid down it to the cobbles with a disheartening _squeeeee-geee-ee-eeee_.

"Vald's in there."

"How?"

"Stupid sword."

"We can only assume that Halvir's in there, too."

"Stupid sorcerer."

"Well, at least they're toge-" Halrein broke off at the bunny's bloody red glare.

* * *

"Hiiiiigh-neeeeeeeeees!" Mars ululated as he rode far far behind Halrein then remembered where he was and almost bit his tongue. Perhaps His Highness had decided he wanted a proper breakfast and had gone back to the castle to get some. Such a highborn personage as Prince Valdrigr couldn't be expected to make do with common trail forage when there was finer fare to be had.

He arrived at the ill-boding dome – he was certain that hadn't been there yesterday – to find his companions slumped against it.

"His Highness?" Sir Halrein wordlessly jerked a thumb towards the dome. "It's all my fault, I should have brought His Highness' breakfast sooner!" Mars wailed.

"Again, Mars," Sir Halrein droned, "Not. Really. About. Food."

"True, I can't begin to understand the refined appetites of royalty," this prompted a sneeze from Sir Rabbit – Mars hoped he wasn't catching a cold, "but breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and whatever ravenous thing His Highness is facing in there, he'll definitely need his strength lest he languish and fall into its wicked clutches."

"You're right, there's still hope. We **must** get him out of there!" Sir Rabbit cried and threw himself against the barrier with renewed vigour, "Vaaaaa-aaaaald! We're coming, Vaaaald! With sausages and buns!”

* * *

Halvir had been deprived of breakfast by those wretched women and that imbecile. This occurred to him mid-fireball volley at three more imps capering towards him with messy death in their mad, beady eyes. Watching dispassionately as they disappeared a-yammering in a pretty purplish puff, Halvir wondered which way the kitchens were – he could really do with a couple of buns right about now and maybe a sausage. Usually a mere sigh summoned a food-clutching maid, but they all seem to have ran off somewhere after the world had righted itself in the wrong way.

**"Gya-muk, gya-mu-!"**

_Fwoom._

"Seigneur sorcier, what's happening?" a guardsman bleated through the smoke.

"I'm handling the situation. Just make sure you get everyone to safety behind closed doors," Halvir proclaimed in his most reassuring tone. The guardsman saluted gratefully. "Oy, where're the kitch-" but he'd already scampered away to find some doors to close and people to save. Halvir shrugged and resigned himself to a quest of culinary discovery.

Actually, he was more at ease than he'd been since last night. He could finally move about the castle freely without fluttery females attacking him in an unpleasantly nostalgic way. The imps and things were also attacking him, and conveniently only him, but in a **pleasantly** nostalgic way that proved to be an excellent diversion from the remaining traces of the compulsion toxin. He'd nearly vanquished that asinine Heart's Desire through sheer force of will – he could feel its urgency fading with every step. The kitchens were on the lower floors … this way. Yes, that felt right, he must have been this way before.

He'd eat …

**"Mruuuple-muu-aaaaargh!"**

_Fwoop._

… then dissect the Votive Vortex that had claimed the previous sorcerer and caused this admittedly interesting nonsense, find its maker …

**"Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"**

… and dissect him, too.

_FOOM!_

He'd be back with Vald – and the others – by this evening at the latest.

Vald would almost certainly get snotty about this.

The imps seemed to be getting bigger. Halvir smile grimly and shifted his grip on his staff. He was looking forward to the challenge.

* * *

Vald couldn'tremember exactly when fighting had become … satisfying. He'd always enjoyed the practice of swordplay, but actually chopping up living beings had never been anything other than a necessary evil for him.

**"KYAA-KRAAAAA!"**

It helped that they weren't human. And vicious. And hellbent on chopping, or in this case, tearing, him up, he concluded as he yanked his sword from the ribcage of yet another lizard-fish thing with a spray of green blood.

"Kyaa! Monsieur le chevalier, that was magnifique!" The audience, Vald felt, **didn't** help.

"Mademoiselle, I beg you to retreat to your apartments, it really isn't safe here." The three hapless guardsmen who had been volunteered by her ladyship to accompany her nodded in silent, but fervent, agreement with Vald.

"Nonsense, I am perfectly safe with you and haven't I already told you twice to call me Veritelle?" she admonished with a playful tap of her fan on Vald's chest. He almost parried it out of reflex. He looked beseechingly at the guards only to find them looking beseechingly at him. She was Seigneur Cavanel's niece and where she wanted to go in her uncle's castle, she went. They could only follow and see no harm came to her … before it came to themselves. Vald could see that last realization forming in their eyes.

"But Mademoiselle," she held up her fan warningly, "… Veritelle, the monsters seem to be targeting me exclusively, so with me is, in fact, the **least** safe place to be," Vald tried in his most reasonable and not-at-all-patronizing tone.

"No, absolutely not – this is **too** good a story and I shan't miss a moment of it!" Vald and the guards stared at her in morbid disbelief as she launched into her imagined narrative – with gestures, "The handsome chevalier rides fearlessly into the cursèd castle to awaken his frozen belovèd with a kiss," she faux swooned and puckered up then frowned, "… non, too cliché. Monsieur le chevalier is **far** more interesting, am I right? Your belovèd would be imprisoned on-high and you would be like," she clasped her hands to her bosom, "'Oh, my dearest, my proud beauty, let down thine flowing hair so that I may climb thine towering … uhm … tower!' Ah, you are blushing – I **am** right, aren't I?"

"N-noo … " Vald stuttered and whipped around the corner praying that something was actually lying in wait there. It had three eyes and fangs the size of his head, and he leapt at it in relief taking it entirely by surprise. It died far too quickly, and Vald reluctantly turned back to his tormentor.

Hoping to avoid her, he looked to her pale-verging-on-green escorts instead and tried to appeal to them; rational human to rational human, "Guards … ?"

"Tommas, seigneur," the largest squeaked.

"Rychard, seigneur."

"Harrold, seigneur chevalier."

"Tomm, Dyck, Harri," they blinked but would obviously put up with any amount of aristocratic silliness as long as it looked like it wanted to send them away from the homicidal things with teeth and its increasingly disconcerting self, "I'm sure Seigneur Cavanel would want his niece kept safe no matter the cost, so I must insist that Mademoiselle Veritelle-" Vald finally glanced at her – she pouted and eyed him from beneath her lashes. He suddenly remembered the gathering last night and his patience vanished, " **Get her** -"

**"GRWA-"**

Four pairs of eyes stared at the rain of heads then back up at Vald as he absently flicked the blood – an unnervingly normal red this time – off his blade. They hadn't seen the heads' previous owners above them. They hadn't seen the swordsman move. One moment there was a pinkly embarrassed, if annoyed, young man, and the next there was … Four minds started to think numbly about stories – old ones that no one really believed anymore. Nameless things that lurked in the dark places and sent bears and wolves running for their lives. Generations had passed since the Empire could lay claim to any nameless fears – it had gone to great lengths to name them all – but, in this suddenly cursed border castle full of all of these nameless things, none of them seemed as viscerally terrifying as this perfectly charming boy.

Who had appeared out of nowhere.

With the monsters.

Hearts thundering, guardsmen and lady took a step back as he stalked towards them with a predatory gleam and a hungry grin.


	3. Gardening in Harsh Conditions

It was such an clichéd trap, Halvir thought with professional disdain, that it barely deserved the name. Votive Vortices, he knew, fed on the power flow of the magically inclined and ensnared them using their own energy. If the prey was weak, as the previous sorcerer had been, it died. If not, it became imprisoned in the vortex. It was an elegant means of neutralizing powerful wizards – Halvir sniffed – or had been before any wizard worthy of the elegance worked out how to counteract them … as he had done. Which made the vortex's continuing existence a potentially embarrassing mystery. Perhaps the sorcerer who had created this Votive Vortex was simply incompetent. Halvir could easily believe that since he'd rammed so much energy into the thing before Cavanel could bring it close enough to trigger that it should have disintegrated then and there. Instead the vortex remained stubbornly huge and intact. What, in all the hells, was sustaining it? The magic flow would have to be enormous.

It would be quite the find and such a waste to have to destroy it to break the vortex.

**"VAAAAA-DRR-"**

_FWOOOOM!_

Halvir blinked repeatedly then frowned. It had been quite some time since he'd felt the need to use so many low-level combat spells in a row but had they always been this … obnoxiously bright? That last fireball had smeared garish spots across his vision. It was almost as if his magic wasn't hi–

_'Halrein's a dogmatic shit-head,'_ Halvir studiously swerved his train of thought in a soothingly familiar direction. _'I'm just hungry – the kitchens should be this way …'_

**"JAAAA-VAAAAA-GRUUAAAAAAAA!"**

_'… past the giant acid-, venom-, fire-spewing, scorpion-tailed hydra. Collectible value: high. Maintenance cost: high. Decorative value: highly subjective.'_ He readied his staff and tried not to wonder what colour the lightning barrage would be. It would be cobalt blue – he'd practiced non-stop one tediously long winter in his fifteenth year just to achieve that exact hue.

* * *

The demoiselle and her guards stood frozen in nameless, ancestral dread as the feral knight stalked towards … and right past them leaving a dumbstruck, stock-still tableau in his wake.

**"JAAAA-VAAAAA-GRUUAAAAAAAA!"**

_Ker-SNAAA!_

Vald sprinted through the corridors towards the screeches and sizzles, his eyes burned brighter than the violet lightning when he finally reached the-

**"JAAAA-GRUUUUU!"**

... sphinx? No, that had the head of badger and the body of a cow or something. Besides, that had just the one head and this had many.

He sprung and sliced, deftly dodging the scorpion tail of the … mandrake? That was a plant, wasn't it? Vald rolled and regained his balance just in time to see each of the neck stumps he'd just created sprout two new heads. Plants **did** do that – he vaguely remembered a botany lecture about it. If he'd known then that the vegetation was as fraught with dangers as he now knew it to be, he'd have been more attentive. Why did tutors always leave out the important bits like bushes can grow to be quite enormous and disturbingly aggressive?

He jumped out of the way of a gout of flame.

His tutors hadn't mentioned **that** either. There had obviously been some holes in his education, thought Vald darkly as he side-stepped a shower of acid. He'd have to rely on experience then. _'One: things die when their heads are cut off,'_ he recalled his battles over the past months and appended, _'Eventually. Two: chopping and burning are the quickest ways to kill a plant,'_ he examined the flame-throwing flora, _'Complication: can't find the right bit to chop and this thing spouts fire so it's doubtful that it's vulnerable to it.'_

_Keeer-SNAAP-aa-aaap!_

_'Solution: lightning.'_ Of course, he recalled one freakishly tempestuous winter when lightning had felled his favourite venerable oak near the royal hunting lodge. Evidently Havi's education had been more comprehensive than his own. He slashed viciously at a gaping maw and retreated before it could spew anything else at him. Maybe he should go consult his learned comrade. They could put their heads together. Strategize.

No. What was he thinking? He had the wretched weed's attention, and he would keep it. Spellcasters were notoriously disadvantaged in close-quarters combat in any case – not being physica-

He ruthlessly cut-off that chain of thought before he tripped over his own feet and got both Havi and himself killed. Havi would be all sanctimonious and "I **told** you to take better care of yourself, **didn't** I?" for the rest of eternity. Vald would never live it down.

All he had to do was keep pruning until the wizard got the point that Vald had gotten the point. They usually ended up on the same page. _'Eventually. Even if Havi's interpretation of the text is usually highly … unusual,'_ Vald fleetingly reflected as he sprung at a bouquet of snakes' heads. Fire and lightning lanced around him. _'Although, his aim's pretty goo-whoa!'_

**"JAA-VRAAAAAA!"**

_'Focus, fool – the final flower!'_

**"JAaaaaaa ..."**

Resounding silence blossomed in the entrance hall accented by the faint sizzle of corroding marble. The wizard stood stock-still on the other side of the felled shrubbery – his robes flared, his staff poised like some sumptuous statue symbolizing Thee Majestie of Majick. Appropriately, his contribution to the silence was keenly nuanced and stoney.

"Hey, Havi." Vald realized he was grinning like an idiot and went to stab the twitching stinger a few times before turning back to the still silent sorcerer. "What, was that valuable or something?" the prince drawled, cocking his hip and raising a disinterested brow once he was certain he could return the wizard's cool disdain.

* * *

Capitaine d'Ontasque peering around the corner and tried to exude cool self-assurance for the sake of his men. He knew how sullen they had been even before this … this whatever it was had started, and the last thing their flagging morale needed was a commander that went and shut himself in the privy at the first bloodcurdling howls from unnamed Creatures Beyond the Ken of Art and Culture … or whatever they were. True, said creatures seemed to be only interested in the new sorcerer, but this fact, obscurely, had done nothing to improve his men's spirits. They had been thoroughly ignored by even the plainest scullery maid since His Magical Magnificence had shown up, and now they were being thoroughly ignored by Creatures Beyond the Ken of Art and Culture as if they weren't even worth the bother of viciously savaging. Pedantic, survival-obsessed heads might have pointed out that this was all for the best, but the general consensus amongst the younger portion of the Vaala castle guards' corps was that they hadn't joined up to be Protectors of the Flame of Art & Culture with the smart uniforms, gleaming boots and shiny pikes just to be upstaged by some flashy pretty-boy wizard in a dress.

Their swelling machismo had been deflating by degrees with almost audible whimpers as they took in the large then larger and spiky then spikier corpses covered in vague, yet colourfully graphic, clues as to how they came to be corpses. Maybe they should let the wizard handle this – it was his job after all and they didn't want to meddle in the affairs of wizards. It would be rude and unbefitting of Protectors of the Flame of Art & Culture and those fangs where really quite amazingly big n'est-ce pas?

Everything might have worked out just fine, and they could have gone back to closing doors and saving the people behind them with their honour intact, reflected Capitaine d'Ontasque bitterly, if only they hadn't come across Mademoiselle Veritelle and her beleaguered bodyguards. That girl had as big a fetish for stories of the "romantique" kind as her uncle had for doodads of the "majick" kind. So now there was a "handsome, dashing, charming and heroic chevalier" running around on some quest or other – here the demoiselle had demurred coquettishly whispering behind her fan that she hadn't worked out all the details yet. The lads' injured pride had given a renewed roar of challenge. Except for Tommas, Rychard and Harrold, who had furtively mumbled something about the knight being kind of "odd" and how they should probably just leave him and the things with fangs to each other and then worry about the victor. The guard captain had chalked this up to the three being in the company of her ladyship for too long, but when he had kindly ordered them to come along, they'd looked spooked and loudly proclaimed that they couldn't possibly leave a demoiselle in distress.

"Sergent d'Ontel, did you hear that?" d'Ontasque asked his second-in-command.

"Wouldn't like to say, mon capitaine," replied the stolid, survival-obsessed sergeant. He looked put upon.

"And I'd rather not be asking. Out with it, man!"

"Then I'd have to say, mon capitaine, that it sounded like a roar of unbridled rage," they both held their breath for a moment and listened, "Two of them."

"Thank you so very much, sergen-"

"I think they might be human," the sergeant supplied helpfully.

"Is that better or worse, I wonder," d'Ontasque murmured to his sergeant, then he raised his voice, but not too much, "Onwards, men!" _'To hope or glory or enraged, human-sounding things with fangs,'_ he finished to himself.

* * *

"-ON'T YOU **EVER** LISTEN TO ME?"

"BECAUSE YOU **NEVER** TELL ME ANYTHING!"

" **THAT'S** BECAUSE YOU NEVER LISTEN TO ME ANYWAY!"

" **AND** THAT'S BECAUSE YOU NEVER …"

Both combatants stopped to pant and exchange accusatory glares for driving each other into this idiotic, rhetoric cul-de-sac. The moment Halvir realized it was Vald on the other side of the hydra, outrage and joy and the obviously **not** conquered-through-sheer-force-of-will Heart's Desire toxins – he gave himself an internal kick – had all collided, freezing him for one breathless, conflicted aeon, then unceremoniously exploded in the most asinine drivel he'd ever heard come out of his own mouth. His only puny, and admittedly petty, victory was that Vald wasn't succeeding in holding on to his infuriating cool anymore than he himself was. To his irritation, Vald recovered first.

"Fine, hoard your precious secrets just like you'll hoard all of your shiny, new toys," the quietly disappointed tone of betrayed beneficence would have made a battle-hardened army commit ritual suicide in shame. Halvir ground his teeth on his own absolutely justified outrage and sullenly tried to regain his composure. "A conveniently dead wizard, a gate conveniently in desperate need of a wizard, and a lord conveniently obsessed with your favourite fetish," Vald was so close now, Halvir could see the sweat and soot on his proud face – he was distracted enough to almost agree that it all did indeed sound rather convenient, but deny that shiny toys were currently his favourite fetish. He harshly harangued himself to get a grip … only to find he'd gotten a grip on his tormentor instead. Halvir dimly heard his staff clatter on the floor as Vald wound a lock of silver hair around his hand with hypnotic slowness – drawing Halvir ever nearer with each revolution. "So you concede that it was a trap set specifically for you, and that I was right to come and save you?" the prince purred a breath away from his mouth, half-lidded eyes failing to hide their triumphant gleam.

"I object," Halvir appealed to dewy lips, struggling manfully not to fall into far more elegant a trap than the Votive Vortex had ever been, "All of your so-called proofs can plausibly be explained by perfectly plausible circumstances wholly and plausibly unconnected to us," he swallowed and, to keep from drowning, grasped at some point he could make, "Furthermore, even if it was a trap set for me, I would have been able to deal with it on my own," Halvir managed to draw back enough to give his hard glare another try at point-blank range.

"Plausibly," Vald deflected, his own eye hardening, "but how could I ever again allow for even the smallest chance – implausible as it may be, Great Wizard – of my only means of breaking my curse falling into enemy hands?"

**"WHOMEVER DAREST INTRUDE UPON THE DOMAIN OF THE OMNIPRESENT AND OMNIPOTENT OMNIZO?"**

Halvir was perversely relieved at the manifestation of the enraged god of the vortex above them, but the sentiment was too short-lived to be analyzed as he felt Vald tense and lunge out of his grasp with barely a tug on the lock of hair he'd held prisoner. Reflex had Halvir casting his fastest, high-level shielding spell before ponderous reason could pedantically remind him that the Penultimate Shield of Ultimate Resort would leave him as magically drained as a baby hedgehog – although a penultimately shielded one – and, thus, was only to be used in the most dire need of self-defence which this wasn't since the god would obviously target the immediate threat _i.e._ not him. Halvir was too pre-occupied to pay any attention to his internal issues when reason caught-up with reflex and gaped at the Penultimate Shield of Ultimate Resort currently surrounding the airborne form of Vald like a heavenly, rune-spangled nimbus. A pinkish one. Both reflex and reason cringed.

Forked lightning lashed out at Vald in actinic claws – the impact on his shield sent Halvir to one knee and unsympathetic sparks coruscating through his hair and down his arms. _'At least I'm grounded,'_ he reasoned, _'the little idiot would have been fried in mid-air.'_ Snarling at all of his non-essential internal issues to shut up and make with the eradication of that stupid compulsion toxin **right now** , he managed to avoid the creeping retroactive dread of one of his own bolts striking Vald as they fought the hydra.

Vald had disappeared inside the cloud – Halvir ruthlessly ignored the psychic pressure trying to convince all of his bones that they would soon be as dust and focused his remaining power into his shield. Abruptly, the god-cloud spasmed like a dyspeptic stomach and spat out a prince before dissipating in an agnostic haze. Halvir's own stomach plummeted ground-wards as Vald did, then so did the rest of him as the crushing force on his shield vanished.

" **Ooomph!** … Havi?"

"-oon hee-ah."

With some grumbling, a little sniggering and much hair-pulling, they levered themselves into a marginally more dignified heap. Halvir tried to re-address his very reasonable and highly plausible counter-arguments to the top of Vald's head, but lost the last of the necessary hauteur when his opponent leaned drunkenly against his shoulder. He settled on pettiness, "And that's why you shouldn't have come."

Vald tiredly swivelled his head and looked him sternly in the nostril, "And you were going to handle that … that clou-"

"God."

"… thank you – that god **how** , precisely?" There was a pause as Halvir waited for Vald's brain to catch-up with his mouth, "Eh?"

"It feeds on magical creatures offered to it and sustains this vortex. They're generally compulsively self-centred, your average vortex gods – they're all named Omnizo, and they're all convinced that they're the only one."

"So those other creatures were …"

"Breakfast," his stomach, having settled back in its traditional position, started making resonant demands. Vald snorted. "I was otherwise engaged," Halvir informed him importantly.

"I was also otherwise engaged with rushing to save ungrateful-"

"I never said I was ungra-"

"Seigneur sorcier. Seigneur chevalier?"

Halvir whipped his head around to glare at whomever darest interrupt him – dislodging Vald's head from his shoulder and right into his lap.

Capitaine d'Ontasque managed to stay stiffly saluting and deadpan beneath his moustache through the flurry of graceful disentangling as both seigneurs regained their standing. The past few minutes had certainly been enlightening, and there was no doubt that the lads' morale was definitely lightening as well. Also many large, befanged and multi-headed Creatures Beyond the Ken Art and Culture and, most certainly, Reason had been dispatched by the two they had so recently and rabidly resented. Thus, the Protectors of the Flame of Art & Culture now felt disposed to allow that maybe the handsome, dashing, charming and heroic knights and wizards of the world had their place vis-à-vis a giant monster or two. Or, maybe, thirty-two give or take a dozen. In short, they were willing to let bygones be bygones since … that is, **even if** the particular knight and wizard in question were a bit … odd. Poor, naïve Tommas, Rychard and Harrold, d'Ontasque thought giddily – still recovering from that cloud … or whatever – they just hadn't seen enough of the world understand. He considered the statuesque pair – resolutely avoiding the sight of the many-headed ex-thing. Weeeeelll, this sometimes happened in these intense, battle-simmered comradeships, right?

Or so he'd heard, but hadn't actually believed.

Until now.

"Right," the sorcerer seemed uncharacteristically unbalanced, "Seigneur Vald is my …" D'Ontasque almost felt sorry for him.

"… escort back to the capital," finished Seigneur Vald, "but when I beheld the benighted curse that had befallen this château, I rushed forthwith to ensure the safety of all the innocents herein."

"They were fine!" snapped seigneur le sorcier.

"As certain as I am that you and these brave guards were more than equal to the task, seigneur sorcier," seigneur le chevalier continued smoothly, "I simply could not forsake my chivalric duty to Protect The Innocent, Be They So Worthy, and Vanquish Evil, Be It So Vile. To do so would have been a stain upon my honour and the honour of all of these brave souls here – my spiritual Brethren in Arms."

Halvir clenched his jaw to keep it from dropping. He could see the guards quaffing every intoxicating capitalization and gazing at Vald with dawning awe. Halvir knew for a fact that he would never have thought up such a cover story, and even if he had, he certainly would never have been able to sell it. That princely charisma was potent stuff. He glowered at the dazzled guards.

"Oh-oooo, that's **boring**!" the indignant critique of Mademoiselle Veritelle rang out in the respectful hush punctuated by the stamping of her slippered foot. "Monsieur le chevalier should be here to rescue his beautiful, long-haired belovèd from a cursèd Fate Worse Than Death. That would **so** much more romantique – like one of those tales with fairies in it!"


	4. The Joy of Snacks

The most feared being in living memory – half an hour – stalked the halls of Vaala castle. Maids scurried busily and guardsmen busily scurried as the dread staccato of The Housekeeper's heels rang on gore-splattered flagstones. **Somebody** had **Made a Right Mess** of her castle and they were all glad that it wasn't them. Every scurrying heart gave furtive thanks that she'd already chosen who, or rather **whom** , to blame for even death was preferable to the punishments Madame could mete out when in **A Mood**. At least death meant that you wouldn't be made to clean-up afterwards.

The Housekeeper's thin lips thinned even further and her narrow nostrils flared at the sight of the ravaged entrance hall. The guards, rapidly developing a keen sense of self-preservation now that scrubbing was going to be involved, quickly parted as she descended on the sorcerer like the vengeful Wraith of All Unwashed Sheets Past.

" **Seigneur sor-** "

"Madame, we cannot begin to express our regrets for the mess we've caused," she wobbled as her wroth hit an unexpected wall of contrition, "You and your maids will most definitely have your work cut out for you in these trying circumstances but seigneur le sorcier and I will do everything in our power to remedy the situation," huge, earnest eyes lifted to meet Vivienne's dazed stare beseeching her forgiveness and understanding.

"Of- of course, Seigneur …"

"Vald," another courtly bow followed by a boyish grin. Vivienne, to her own and the remaining guards' surprise, curtsied – now thoroughly at sea in an ocean of manners and only vaguely registering that it wasn't much by way of introduction or explanation. "Thank you, Madame …"

"Vivienne, seigneur."

"Excellent! Well done! Now, Seigneur Halvir and I must trouble you for breakfast or a snack or something – whatever can be scrounged – but I must go see to my horse first. Capitaine? Go ahead without me, Havi."

"Of course, mon seigneur!" the guard captain saluted crisply and scrambled after the knight, sensing in his kidneys, which he very much wanted to keep, that it would be wise to be as far away from seigneur le sorcier as possible.

Seigneur Vald was already striding out of the hall with his impromptu honour guard in tow, before the wizard had recovered, "Vald!"

The charm left with Seigneur Vald, Chevalier de Somewhere Unspecified, leaving Vivienne absently patting her steely bun and wishing she'd worn more jewelry. Her gaze rested on the gore at her feet and yanked her back to cold reality where Madame Vivienne, The Housekeeper of Vaala, didn't indulge in sighing over handsome young men but did genteelly grill them for not doing their job which, in many ways, was almost as satisfying. She turned like an enraged queen wasp to seethe at the sorcerer, but he was fully occupied with his own seething at the main entrance as drifts of hearty laughter wafted through it, and had no interest to spare for the likes of her. Vivienne belatedly recalled her previous assessment that tact would be as effective with this one as chucking baked goods at a fortress. Still, no matter how seemingly impenetrable the wall, there was always a seam somewhere wherein one could insert a cake knife. It was just a question of perseverance and perspicacity.

"Oh, Madame Viv, this is **too** frustrating! Nothing is going as I had planned. Where are the misunderstandings, the jealousy, the angst and the romance?"

Vivienne flapped in the general direction of Mademoiselle Veritelle's tantrum but kept her stare fixed on her obstinately oblivious target. She'd found it best to never actually listen to the girl in any case, and, since Her Ladyship was too self-absorbed to notice, they communicated perfectly.

"There, there, ma chère," Vivienne soothed automatically, "someday your prince will come." Amazingly, this got her a reaction – the wizard tore his glare from the door and eyed her like a paranoid basilisk.

"You're absolutely right – I'll go write it down immediately!" With a twirl of petticoats and bustle a-bobbing, Mademoiselle Veritelle less-than-daintily legged it up the stairs in her eagerness to commit literature.

"Just eat it before it gets cold," Vivienne murmured by way of farewell then snapped at Veritelle's erstwhile bodyguards before they could slink out, "You three, start disposing of this ... this ... What precisely is- was this?" she inquired of seigneur le sorcier with frigid professionalism. He gave her a look of such superior condescension, she almost forgot herself and sneered.

"It was a giant acid-, venom-, fire-spewing, scorpion-tailed hydra, but it's safely dead now," there was an audible sigh from the guardsmen, "Except for the blood which is highly corrosive and the fangs which are venomous ..." there was a yelp followed by squelching thud, "... and razor-sharp. It is unfortunate that it's in so many pieces – seigneur le chevalier tends to get carried away with the hacking and slashing," the tone put the fangs to shame.

With dawning insight, Vivienne smiled at him sweetly and hefted her metaphorical cake knife, "Really? He seems most charming and considerate – the very soul of chivalry," she cooed, "The perfect comrade-in-arms, too, I have no doubt."

"He's just here ..." his expression soured, "... as my escort back to the capital."

"Ah, no wonder you were so diligent in completing your duties here that you skipped breakfast," Vivienne gave the knife another twist, "Still, it's surprising that such a highborn and capable chevalier should be given such a trivial task – no offence meant, seigneur sorcier – but he obviously belongs at court not tromping through the countryside. Still, I cannot imagine that it was assigned to him as some sort penance-"

" **Vald didn't do anything wrong.** "

Vivienne instinctively retreated and heard a _splish_ followed by a faint sizzle, but whatever substance she'd just stepped into, it couldn't be half as deadly as the sorcerer's snarl. She'd been trying to induce him into letting some clue slip as to why a powerful wizard had been dispatched to a trivial border crossing – she was certain it was connected to the now benighted and bedraggled state of her castle. The coincidences were piling up in an unsightly heap, and she'd been unforgivably heavy-handed in her determination to get to the bottom of it. Instead she'd turned up ...

_'Oh, the girls will be so disappointed,'_ she thought distantly, _'At least they'll be able to scrub the floors with their tears.'_

Wizard and housekeeper glanced at each other askance – both thoroughly entangled in the crossed signals, but years of wrangling knotty faux pas came to her aid and Madame Vivienne extricated herself first, "Seigneur sorcier, please come this way," this got her a look of beautiful bewilderment. She gave an internal sigh and relented minutely, "To the kitchens."

Seigneur le sorcier followed in the mulish silence that Vivienne had uncharitably decided must be his default state then he brightened slightly, "I could really do with a sausage in a bu-"

"Porridge," the housekeeper said quickly to cover an indelicate snort, "I'm afraid, seigneur sorcier, that all I can offer you under the circumstances is porridge."

* * *

Porridge. That's what his skull was filled with: stupid, stupid, mushy porridge. Again. Still. Some more. Vald sunk deeper into cold gloom and tried to find his sanity there. He blew disconsolate bubbles until his horse nudged him meaningfully with his nose indicating that he – Vald – was in the way of his – the horse's – well-earned drink. Stung by the patiently put upon look on his horse's pale, long-boned face, Vald heaved himself out of the water trough.

This was ridiculous.

He was ridiculous.

He paused distractedly mid soaked tunic extrication as a hot blush crept up his face.

"Seigneur chevalier?"

Vald briefly struggled with the clinging linen and won, "Erm, yes?" the groom's concerned expression yanked him back to reality, "Yes, thank you very much for taking such good care of my Hav- … moun- … horse," Vald finally finished and didn't blame the groom one bit for his quick retreat to the safety of the stalls.

He gave the tunic a vicious twist. He had to get a grip.

"'Protect The Innocent,'" he mumbled to himself – he was a dishonour to his oath. There were people here depending on him. Grooms and maids and guards, that kind housekeeper and even that odd demoiselle with the fairytale fixation. All of them non-magical, non-tall, non-muscular and non-silver-haired people who he should have been thinking of when he'd ridden here like a demo- … mad man suspecting a trap. They needed him even if other people thought otherwise and he couldn't fail them just because … because …

He squelched to a halt. Somewhere there might have been a giggle and some sighs, but Vald shut it all out and ruthlessly focused on every inhalation and exhalation, on the warm squishiness between his toes in his waterlogged boots, on the cool droplets from his hair running down bare shoulders and, finally, on the weight of the sheathed sword in his hand. Havi could lecture until even he ran out of words for "reckless", but if Vald didn't use It, It would use him.

Vald remembered vaguely that he needed to exhale and forcefully overrode the helpless horror of metal piercing firm flesh with the galvanizing power surge of wielding it willingly to save his friends. His muscles relived the jolt of it. He shivered and started walking again with a slow shake of his head – there was no way in all the heavens or hells that anything that felt that amazingly, mind-searingly good could be natural.

Besides, Vald thought darkly with narrowing eyes and a quickening stride, it's not like Havi had any right to lecture him about his "recklessness". He hadn't even talked to Vald about masquerading as the official sorcerer here and look what happened. And having to use that resurrection spell? Or … with the demon … never mind not even telling Vald about it – the demon was inhumanly strong and had fangs and claws. That couldn't have been …

_'All those scratches and the constant lethargy in the mornings. That bloody idiot!'_

Not stopping to wonder how he knew exactly where to find his prey, Vald rounded a corner into the subdued chaos of one of the better appointed kitchens and, acting on impulses more primal than any of his resident hell-fiend's, the prince draw back his arm and fired his clammy wad of a tunic at the silver mane of his quarry.

"I thought you were just a clumsy late-riser!" he raged over the satisfying double _sle-thwacks_ of wet cloth hitting hard head and hard head hitting porridge.

* * *

Halvir swiped goo off the bridge of his nose and let his lips curl in wicked intent. Sooo, His Royal Highness thought He could waltz back into this wretched castle after all of Halvir's inspired and painstaking undercover machinations, pontificate at him about "saving him", play with his hair and then just go swanning off with His new chums and ignore him? Well, it was high time for the His Spoiled Brattiness to learn once and for all exactly whom he was dealing with. Halvir smoothly swivelled in his seat – his smirk turning outright evil in anticipation.

He blinked.

"Why're you all wet?"

Vald blinked.

"Water trough. What're you eating?"

"Porridge." Meticulously taking in every detail, Halvir studied the downward course of a water droplet. Distractedly he licked the last of the goo from a finger and caught Vald's eyes following the motion like a cat. "Did you want some?" He lost a moment enjoying the blush, _'So cute,'_ then frowned, "How did you end up in a water trough?"

"Oh, that," Vald fidgeted, "there was some acid and- **gnark!** "

"Why didn't you tell me?" Halvir demanded in the twinkly aftermath of his healing spell congratulating himself on having retained at least that much magic from the battle. He waited for his heart rate to level and glared at the prince – it was unnatural what the idiot put him through.

"Havi," Vald's voice was slightly nasal under his palm but unmistakably cool.

"What?" he snapped – he had no intention of letting go no matter how stroppy Vald got.

"I wasn't actually hurt but if you want to talk injuries," Vald took his wrist in a death grip and pried Halvir's hand off his face – his hostility increasing with every word, "we can start with your-"

"Your porridge, seigneur chevalier," the bland voice of the housekeeper hit them like a pointedly polite bucket of water. Halvir slowly became aware of the pool of silence surrounded the two of them, and that it was filled with fascinated stares and the gurgle and hiss of over-boiling pots.

"Right, we're leaving," he grabbed Vald in a headlock and started dragging him towards the only place in this overly-populated castle not filled with overly-interested eyes.

"Wait, Havi, what about breakfast?"

"You'll get yours later."

* * *

"We're too late!" moaned the bunny, "I just know it. Oh, my poor, poor Vald!"

"I'm afraid so," Mars heaved a morose sigh, "It's nearly lunchtime. I'm sorry, Your Highness, for making you miss a meal!" he yelled at the dome, "I can only hope that you'll find something in there!"

Rulca growled and turned on Halrein, "You, null-wizard, energy sapping is the only thing you're actually good at – do something about this!"

"I'm trying," Halrein growled back, peeved by the accuracy of the remark, "It's a Votive Vortex gone critical. I've never heard of this happening – no one has!"

"Vald got in."

"Vald's got a bloody enormous magical sword – I don't."

"Evidently."

"What's **that** suppose to mean?"

"My friends, we must not lose heart." Rabbit and wizard glared at Mars – he was going to be reasonable at them again they just knew it, "While I have full confidence in Sir Halrein's magical abilities, we must not forget that Sir Halvir is also doubtlessly working on the problem from the inside. With two talented wizards on the case, at least one of them will surely succeed."

Halrein's eyes ignited with righteous determination. There were two wizards on the case, but, unlike that snotty know-it-all, **he** was outside of that damn dome and **he** most certainly wouldn't get distracted.

The rabbit was right, he knew that all too well – he didn't have the strength to break the barrier. He'd never been and would never be as powerful as Halvir, but, like a blind man, he'd honed what abilities he **did** possess to a razor keenness. He'd learned to "hear" the harmonics of the magic flow like no other wizard **because** he couldn't simply overpower it.

Halrein rested hands and forehead against the dome, listened to the energy of the Votive Vortex and found it all too familiar.

"That idiot! Does he have any control over his own bloody power?"


	5. Strictly Prohibited

Halvir wondered when exactly he'd lost control of the situation and decided that it was probably somewhere between shoving Vald through the door and getting shoved onto the bed. How he came to be tied-up _'… rather expertly,'_ he brooded with creeping dark suspicions, remained a complete mystery. He was in the grip of a nameless primordial unease and it was setting his teeth on edge. Halvir schooled his expression into some of semblance of cool insouciance and addressed the source of all confusion, "Vald, why am I …" he tried to find a suavely unconcerned way of saying "tied to the headboard" without actually saying "tied to the headboard". He essayed an illustrative hand twirl instead, but caught sight of it out of the corner his eye and ended up feeling bloody stupid all the same.

"You suggested it last night, and, since I know you think that I don't listen to you and, therefore, you don't tell me things, I wanted to show you that I do listen so that you'll know that you can tell me things," Vald finished disarmingly. Halvir stared disbelievingly. So this is what happened when you talked to people – they went and cheekily listened.

"Why the headboard?" It was the only thing he could think of asking at that moment.

"Because the door handle would have been too fiddly, that chair would have had to be maneuvered into place thus losing the element of surprise, the drapery cord wouldn't hold you for long and the rod is too high."

"Had a lot experience tying people up in bed?" Halvir hadn't liked the business-like litany at all. He'd never really contemplated what Prince Valdrigr's personal life had been pre-curse – he was now the only one who knew the Real Vald so the past was irrelevant. Nevertheless, this lurking suspicion was one he would have been happier without.

"Why would I want to do that? There obviously aren't enough fixed ligation points in a bedchamber. Besides, we have dungeons for that, you know," Vald pointed out breezily. Halvir kept on staring – somehow the conversation was getting away from him. "However, tactical thinking and observation are paramount at all times," Vald continued in the virtuous recitation voice of a prize pupil, "so I assessed and improvised. Also, I didn't want you to be uncomfortable – you're not my prisoner."

Halvir searched for the slightest knowing glitter in those clear eyes, but irony had obviously not been part of Vald's otherwise admirably comprehensive education. He gave his bonds an experimental twist – tight enough to restrain but not chafe and on each hand, too. Halvir was impressed now that the element of surprise – almost certainly what Vald's instructors had called it – had worn off.

"What did you use as twine?"

"Your hair." Halvir whipped his head from side-to-side and goggled at his bonds. Yes, that was without a doubt his hair – he'd know it anywhere. "I figured you'd rather just answer me than burn through your own hair," the smug twerp blithely went on, "It would be a shame ... It is beautiful." Calloused fingertips trail across his brow then down his neck as Vald brushed long strands away from his eyes. All attempts at assembling some coherently scathing remarks instantly abandoned, Halvir relaxed against the headboard and basked in the glow of Vald's dreamy absorption. He was suddenly enjoying the situation immensely.

"What did you have in mind?" Vald snatched his hand away at the sound of his voice. _'Damn.'_

"Did I hurt you?" Once more Vald sent the world veering in a radically unforeseeable direction. Halvir wished he'd just pick one – that last one for preference – and follow it all the way through.

"No, you tied me up very-"

"When we first met. When you first …" Vald looked at him beseechingly with all the confusion and helplessness Halvir was beginning to feel. Why was he bringing that up now? It seemed like a lifetime ago – it had been for him. "… with the demon. You said it was like dealing with a wild animal," that came out as an accusation. Halvir kept his mouth shut – it had already gotten him in enough trouble and telling Vald that he personally found his demon form to be a perfectly cuddly hell-thing seemed unwise. "I remember how injured and tired you were in the mornings! Why didn't you tell me?" Highly specialized unease blazed to life. "Why did you let me take advantage of you like that?" _'Hunnnh?'_ Vald threw himself restlessly off the bed. _'No!'_ Arms yanked uselessly against silver manacles. Halvir gritted his teeth and lashed out a leg, hooked Vald around that waist and heaved.

"Stay. First-"

"I know what the demon is capable of! It exists only for the kill. It could have killed you! Just as I ki-"

There was no way in all the hells that Halvir was going to let Vald wallow in that misplaced guilt, "You asked. Now listen to my answer. You. Did. Not. Kill. Me. Either as a demon or a man. You've done nothing wrong," Halvir prayed to whatever deity he hadn't offended that some shred of this was getting through that stronghold of stubbornness. Why did Vald have to torture himself like this? It was murder on Halvir's nerves and, frankly, made him ramble, "Also, you weren't actually taking advantage of me. In fact, if you really want to put it like that, then it would be more accurate to say that I was the one taking advantage of you. So really, it was all my doing. Understand? You good. I bad." _'Don't cry.'_

Vald twisted around in his leg vice and eyed him suspiciously. There was no trace of tears this time – Halvir allowed himself an inner sigh of relief.

"Enjoy being the demon's scratching post that much, do you?" He was learning fast – although apparently not fast enough – and spotted the barbs in Vald's question.

_'I more than enjoy being your scratching post, love.'_ Halvir deemed that response, however sincere, not to be the correct one at this time. "Was this what that scene in the kitchens was all about?" Vald glowered at being scolded like a misbehaving child just as Halvir had hoped he would. A snotty Vald was better than a tormented one. "I'm surprised you were able to find me – the kitchens here are amazingly well concealed."

"I can always find you," Vald sounded puzzled by that. Brows knitted in concentration, he crawled forward until he could examined Halvir minutely. All right, he was being eyeballed like a caterpillar that just metamorphosed into a new species of ham sandwich, Halvir thought in bemusement, but it was definitely progress in the right direction. He instinctively shifted his head when Vald suddenly leaned in and ended up with an ear-full of patrician nose. _'"Thee Skrolle of Seventee-feven Hundrydd & Seventee-fix Senshule Delites: Stryctlee Prohybeeted" needs to be appended. I thought those old monks had missed a few.'_

"Just as I though," came the slightly muffled conclusion, "it's by scent that I can find you," Vald proclaimed and snuffled at more neck for corroboration. Halvir almost sighed in a seventy-seven hundred and seventy-eighth delight when Vald pulled back with a growl, "Why do you smell like flowers and cats?"

Halvir happily speculated whether a looming, snarling Vald who was making any amount of sense would be more or less alluring, and if said allure was in anyway proportional to the amount of sense being made, until some boring, unoccupied portion of his brain finally served up a response, "That's just from some women."

"Some women."

"Yes."

"Just some women."

"That's right."

"Close enough to get their ... scent on you."

"They were rather persistent."

"I noticed that last night."

"Some people just can't take a hint."

"I noticed that as well."

_'No, what he's saying doesn't really matter. It's that thing his eyebrows do and the way his nostrils flare that really makes it work from this ang-'_

An imperious tongue ran wetly from clavicle to earlobe and back then up the other side. _'Seventy-seven hundred and seventy-nine.'_ Vald drew back and stared at him intently, all heavy-lidded eyes and parted lips. Halvir stared back, _'Is that jealousy? No. Territoriality. My beautiful beast, you needn't worry about that.'_ And he finally saw what he'd been looking at all along or, rather, what he **hadn't** been looking at all along. No claws. No fangs. No markings.

"Vald."

"What?"

"Nothing." He tried to approach the intriguing notion nonchalantly, so that it wouldn't notice and evaporate into one more wish. Vald tended to fall further into his curse when in the grip of violent emotion, and he had been in the throws of some royal snit when he'd pounced on Halvir in the kitchens, but had he shown any of the signs? If this was really the Real Vald that would explain the inventive aggressiveness. _'Not that the demon Vald isn’t aggressive but he turns adorably docile once he's gotten what he wants,'_ Halvir mused smugly.

The Real Vald was infinitely more complicated than that. He was difficult and so unpredictable that Halvir suspected even Vald didn't know what Vald was going to do. Vald made the demon look like a relaxing picnic.

Vald had control issues.

If he asked, Halvir was certain – almost completely certain – that Vald would untie him, but being on the receiving end of Vald's gallantry was becoming increasingly irksome, and every instinct he'd ever honed in uncovered treasures so rare they were beyond price, told him that this would be a unique opportunity lost. He wouldn't really be himself if he retreated from such a fascinating challenge just because his hands were tied, and if this was really Vald being Vald, Halvir **really** wanted to see what he would do next.

* * *

Vald wondered what to do next. No, that wasn't quite accurate – he **knew** what do next with a white hot clarity of intent that burned across his mind and blinded his better judgement. The challenge lay in **not** doing it. Or, to be entirely accurate, the challenge lay with one leg slung casually about Vald's hips, his hands tied to the headboard and a politely patient expression as if waiting for Vald to introduce the next topic of conversation which was sure to be scintillating. Ingrained conditioning came to the fore and, bypassing his brain as an unnecessary participant, delivered the pearls of social intercourse directly to Vald's unwitting mouth, "That was one **enormous** plant we fought earlier, wasn't it? It just kept sprouting all those blooms – was it some sort of ... uhm ... fritillary? And those roots moved so fast almost like ... legs ..."

Havi had arched one elegant brow and Vald knew – **just knew** – that he would have some wise-ass response that would make Vald feel even more of an idiot. In the urgent, breathless hope of silencing that smart mouth and his own stupid one, Vald lunged. He'd gotten his tongue tangled with Havi's and swallowed a low, delighted groan of undetermined provenience before remembering that this right here was precisely what he'd been striving so hard to **not** do.

Havi was being no help whatsoever. Where was his reticence now that Vald needed it? He could at least have the decency to be affronted at being bound. A frostily fuming mage would have really helped the prince stoke his own fumes, but no matter how much effort he put into it, Vald could never stay good and angry at Havi for any self-respecting amount of time.

The problem, Vald decided with desperate cogitation as he gasped for air against Havi's jaw, was first and foremost in the tasting, and his first tactical misstep had obviously been washing away that irritating reek of flowers and felines with his tongue. "Wizard, licking of" was definitely going on the Strictly Prohibited List.

Rough wetness dragging along ear rim to lobe instantly sparked a connection to parts Vald had hitherto not considered to be aurally inclined. He bucked and moaned and tried to remember which parts his head was supposed to be connected to.

"Seventy-seven hundred and eighty," was murmured with satisfaction into his over-sensitized ear. Vald didn't waste what little functioning brain-space he had left on wondering what Havi was counting on about. Havi being strange wasn't strange – Havi being strange was Havi.

He eased himself back from the brink and shut his eyes, realized they were already shut and opened them.

Amethyst.

Not purple. Not violet. Havi's eyes were amethyst.

Vald stared into amethyst and decided that the second, and far greater, problem was in the seeing. Taste was primal and clearly the demon's doing, but Vald couldn't quite reconcile the mindless monster with this ardent appreciation of aesthetic. Could the demon even see beauty? The demon could obviously see Havi, but did it **see** him?

Vald braced himself by sheer force of will and reared away from all the gemstone glory. Unfortunately for his peace of mind, he'd braced himself against unyielding pale flesh. Vald groaned almost entirely out of frustration. Eyes fixed on his own tanned hands against Havi's fair skin, he tried to distract himself from the vibrant vitality of it, "There's no scar." The heartbeat under his fingers kicked.

"Vald, you really don't need to worry about that anymore."

"That's what Rulca said."

"The bunny says a great many things – he was bound to be right at least once out of pure luck."

"Havi, you're going to need to let go." The leg binding Vald tightened its hold. Havi's steady gaze became decidedly belligerent. Vald wondered whether he should share his Strictly Prohibited List with him, but Havi would most likely not appreciate it for the splendid bit of reasoning that it was. Vald was nevertheless immensely proud of it. He'd figured out that if he abstained from all five senses when around the wizard then he'd stay sane – although slightly bruised as he'd be constantly walking into things. Details aside, the logic was sound and one day he hoped to have the strength of character to act on it.

Today was not that day, but there were immediate and pressing practical concerns he wouldn't ignore.

"I mean that if you don't let go," Vald clarified as he forcibly prized the leg from around his waist, "then I can't do this," and plunked himself astride Havi's lap. It was worth it just to see the look on his face. The demon had made him a stranger in his own heart and head, but at least Vald could lay claim to the feeling of satisfaction in discomposing the supremely composed wizard as his very own. "If I transform again ... I don't know how the demon will react. I don't want you to be hurt or wo-"

"His Highness is very gallant."

It was, thought Vald through the heady sensory rush as he gave his body free rein, like fighting the most worthy of opponents. The one who can counter all your strokes, parry all your thrusts, drive you to the very limits of your skills, or, if **you're** worthy, what you thought were the limits of your skills. He evaded the breathless grapple into madness at the very last moment and pulled back panting. Havi followed only to be yanked short by his bonds. The amethyst challenged and charmed.

Vald's appraising hands tested sweat-slicked muscle. Too bad Havi was such a sucky swordsman – it would have been fun to spar with him. Maybe Vald could instruct him. His own muscles contracted and ground against hard hips at the thought. The flesh beneath his hands jolted.

" **Hmm!** " Maybe he should untie Havi – this was hardly fair.

"Can I be of some assistance?" his adversary reclined against the headboard exuding urbane helpfulness and smouldering smugness.

"I don't know," Vald wasn't fooled – he placed a hand on each bound wrist and bore down with his hips in sharp intent. He stared as the smugness flared into demand and forgot to stop. "Can you?"

"I would," eyes narrowed and glittered, "but, alas, I have been restrained thus."

"That is most unfortunate," Vald leaned forward, "Shall I rescue you?" Had Vald not been so close, he might have missed the twitch at the corner of Havi's mouth. He moved in to taste his victory then almost whined in frustration. Why was he still wearing ... **anything**? That was some magical banishing talent of Havi's he'd never really appreciated until right now.

The smarmy smirk was back. Vald held those mocking eyes and watched them widen at the sound of ripping cloth. The stunned silence that followed was filled only with the sound of heavy breathing until Vald groaned and dropped his head against a pale shoulder. He felt the kiss on the side of his neck and the smile.

"And you were doing so well."

"I guess I should untie you."

"Vald, I'm really insulted that you think I need my hands for this."

"Wha **AAAaaaAAH!** "

"Just hold yourself up ..." lick," ... like that."

" **Hmmm** -NAH!"

"Good boy."

Vald growled and gasped. He drowned in the dizzyingly familiar wetness and silky suction and had to acknowledged dimly that his Strictly Prohibited List had fallen short. Sight had to betray him only once – after that his mind would take over and provide all of its own incapacitating imagery. He'd have to be dead to keep his head around Havi. Now all he could let it do was fall back and try his best to hold on and up and out and whatever other dimension Havi chose to conjure into being.

Havi conjured-up "down".

" **AH!** "

And "in".

Vald forgot his breath. He'd thought – back when thought was possible – that he knew everything that clever mouth was capable of. He'd thought wrong.

He was arched back like a bow and twanged with the slightest plucking of Havi's talented tongue. The tension was unbearable. Vald vaguely heard a whimper and a low answering chuckle vibrated up his spine.

Awe and affront collided.

Vald snapped.

"Vald, wai- **kgN!** "

… stillness ….

… not words, but the ancestors of words – commands to bone and flesh, **_'Do Not Bite. Do Not Claw. Do Not Rend. All Must Die. All Must Cease. But This One Lives. Must Live.'_**

First there was fulfillment and endless grinding need. Then there was sensation. Taste. **That** taste. Everywhere there was a pulse. It beckoned and beguiled.

_'Havi.'_ Vald's jaw had locked before he could sink teeth into throat. The imperative to consume and be consumed had driven him to this. He savoured the sweat and the pulse, but remembered that he needed his mouth to speak, "Havi," he started and tried to remember the words for what he wanted to say.

"I take it back," the tone was so superlatively smug, Vald abandoned his nascent apology, "about the gallantry."

He held that self-satisfied stare and raced after the pulse. He caught it as amethyst blossomed into black.

Vald cried out the only word he knew and flew.

* * *

Halvir suspected that he was melting. Maybe not precisely "melting". Maybe "oozing" was a bett- no, **"glowing"** sweat out of every pore. He also seemed to be glowing Vald, which was all well and right and exactly as the world should be, but something was marring this otherwise ideal state of affairs.

"Vald."

"Mmm?"

"Hands. Mine."

There was some enjoyable friction of bicep against bicep and a sigh, "Can't. Fingers. Mine."

Halvir peered at each of his hands in turn. He searched for a moment for the counter-intuitive commands, but finally managed to make himself let go. Vald untangled his fingers and, with two deft tugs, unbound him. Halvir let his hands amuse themselves and sank back into blissful perfection.

Vald levered himself up until they were nose-to-nose and declared, "I can't believe you did that. I can't believe most of the things you do," this was punctuated by the resonant _tock_ of colliding foreheads, "You're **weird**."

Halvir was so ridiculously flattered he momentarily wondered if any of that Heart's Desire toxin was still in his system, but if Vald himself hadn't burned it away, nothing would. Halvir admittedly also felt rather singed, but as his master use to say, if you can't take the heat, don't perform the Infernal Invocation of Incineration (Level III).

"That was ... unhygienic," Vald mumbled against his neck.

"I'm glad you enjoyed it."

"My nanny would not have approved."

"Were you planning on telling her?"

"Nah. Anyway, I think she lied to me," Vald slurred and yawned, "She told me I'd fall in love with a princess and live happily ever after,” hands stilled, "To be fair, she couldn’t have known I'd end up possessed by some weird curse."

Halvir didn't clearly remember being run through the heart with Yug Verlind, but he thought he knew exactly how it must have felt.

"Havi, do you usually glow after sex?"

Halvir stared, _'He doesn't know, does he?'_

"You're actually emitting light. I never noticed that before. Is it part of your magic?"

Named unease roared into an inferno feeding on pain and doubt. It hissed and jeered at Halvir. Only Vald could whip him from hell to heaven and back with such ease. Yet, Halvir treasured Vald's obliviousness to that fact – he didn't think he could take another bout of neurotic self-flagellation right now, "Yes. It's nothing to worry about."


	6. Weapons of Mass Distraction

"It's turned pink now. Why is it pink?"

"Uhm …" Halrein wiped his forehead and thought fast under the blow-lamp of the bunny's red glare, "It's the way the sun's hitting the dome … the uhm … refraction just makes it look pink. It's not actually pink." The dome darkened to a sullen grey. It was amazing how snide that little nose wrinkle could be.

"And now 'the sun' is making it 'look' sad," the rabbit sneered.

"Clouds?" Halrein suggested hopelessly wishing Rulca would just shift back into his human form already – this piping heckling was like being flayed alive by ducklings. Blessèd Beings were supposed to be a blessing weren't they? Now it was dawning on Halrein that for someone to be blessèd someone else would have to be cursèd. It was supposed to maintain the Celestial Balance which, as a wizard and a former Guardian of the Law of the Village of Mages, he was particularly keen on but, personally, at this very moment, he could have done without.

When he'd found out, Halrein had been surprised to learn that Rulca was technically Halvir's spirit companion, but now it was all beginning to make perfect sense.

"If anything more happens to my Vald, I'm holding you personally responsible!"

Halrein rested his palms against the sulking dome and concentrated with renewed intensity to shut out the lengthy enumeration of all the ways in which he would be held responsible if Rulca's precious prince emerged with even a solitary hint of a hickey on his royal person.

Verily the spiritual resonance between master and companion was uncanny.

* * *

It was uncanny, Capitaine d'Ontasque marvelled, the power of distraction.

"Vald, don't touch that."

While he'd admit to having minimal practical experience in being trappèd in a cursèd castle, he'd nevertheless studied long and hard …

"I think I know what I'm doing, Havi."

… to become an officer and he was well versed in the protocol of these situations.

"That's what I'm worried about."

There ought be horror and panic and courageous, yet humble, acts of heroism and/or self-sacrifice performed by courageous, yet humble, people. There should be building of strategic barricades and bearing of arms as sheets and petticoats were torn into bandages and compresses by steadfast ladies ministering to the humbly heroic men as they all faced the cursèd horrors together with grim determination and unity of purpose.

"What about this? It just jiggles a bit which, I will admit, is quite curious."

That's the way the historical manuscripts recounted similar circumstances and all the treatise on military tactics and etiquette – he'd gotten a bit carried away in the library and hadn't noticed the subject drift until the dire threats about parasols – had been very specific about the barricades and the bearing of arms and, indeed, the petticoats which presumably proper ladies should never get sullied lest they be needed for triage purposes. Nowhere did those historians and tacticians of yore mention what to do in the face of an embarrassing lack of rampant horror and even more embarrassing abundance of rampant speculation.

"No. Hands off."

But then they wouldn't, would they? What chronicler worth his quill would set down the account of the mysterious siege by Untold Creatures Beyond the Ken of Man that were casually dispatched by two great comrades-in-arms in favour of a lov … intense high-level discussion much to the heroic, yet humble, fascination of all?

"Havi, I really don't see why you're being so uptight about this. I have seen family jewels before, y'know."

True, one could perhaps bury the more colourful details in the subtext of "The Arte of Mifderection" chapter, but it was hardly something one could pass down to later generations without them noticing.

"… Reeeeeally."

Those little buggers always went looking for the interesting bits.

"Indeed, and they were much more impressive with more rare gems and ores and things. The settings of the royal jewels of Alsvieth alone are made entirely of orichalcum and enchanted to enhance charisma and prevent balding."

In retrospect, d'Ontasque let his gaze rest on the high-beamed ceiling, perhaps he should have finished that twenty-three volume work on etiquette.

"Well since it's not up to Your Highness' standards, why don't you put that back slowly where you found it?"

As it stood, he, d'Ontasque, Captaine, Vaala Castle Guard, was the only clear thinker left capable of keen and dispassionate observation and deduction. Even Madame Vivienne had recognized this as she'd beseeched him – between screeches at giggling maids about sheets and boot prints – to insure the uninterrupted privacy of seigneur le sorcier and seigneur chevalier as they concentrated without interruption – she'd been very precise on this point – on the task of breaking the curse on the castle. She'd even promised a thorough cleaning of the guard barracks as an incentive. D'Ontasque had been observant enough of the glint in Madame's eyes to grant her request immediately. His extremely humble, yet heroic, men did not expect such grand treatment. It could have a lasting effect on delicately growing lads.

"Frankly, Havi, I'm surprised it's up to your standards so maybe I've missed the interesting bits."

For it was d'Ontasque's strongly held belief, neatly catalogued in the very filing cabinets of his heart, that discretion was not only the better part of valour but also the better part of retaining one's own better parts. As far as he was concerned, whatever the gentleman with the lightning bolts and the gentleman with the disconcerting broadsword wanted to do to each other behind closed doors was entirely their own concern and not the subject of gleeful and breathless speculation.

"I'm beginning to understand how you ended up with the sword."

Granted, his firmly held stance on the matter – standing right next to the discreetly hidden doorway just inside of Seigneur Cavanel's treasure room where he would be in no one's way – probably went against the very keen point of Madame's request, but she had other more pressing concerns elsewhere, whilst he was in a locked room full of dubiously enchanted erotica with the aforementioned gentlemen. She'd given him a bucket, and he briefly wondered if it would fit over his helmet or whether he'd need to remove the helmet first. Either way, the cold water would be an inconvenience but emptying it first in the event of an … interruption would be against d'Ontasque's personal and professional code of politic unobtrusiveness and not being kebabed where he stood.

"It's not like I had a choice, Havi. My people were being slaughtered."

Thankfully, the room's more lurid paraphernalia was being completely ignored – most likely as superfluous as far as he could tell – and, even better, so was he. This suited him just fine as he had more important matters to apply his incisive military intelligence to.

"I would never questioning your valour, Vald."

Clearly, there was something suspicious afoot. Giant castle-engulfing barriers and monsters didn't just appear out of nowhere.

"Oh."

Perhaps there were some nefarious foreign machinations to blame. Vaala was the Last Line of Defence between the Darkness and the Light of Culture & Knowledge. And he was its last line of defence.

"Only your good sense."

He knew that they couldn't hope to be as sophisticated as those in the Capitale out here on the fringe, but a government – Praise be the Divine Empereur and His Divine Devices – really oughtn't be allowed to deploy such devastatingly effective weapons of mass distraction within its own borders.

"Is that why you didn't want me here while you examined that vortex orb thing?"

D'Ontasque was momentarily taken aback by the seditious direction of his own thoughts. You heard some rumours about the Capitale but they made no sense whatsoever – certainly it was the safest and most civilized place in existence. They were most likely just banal details about everyday life in the core of the Empire that had simply gotten twisted by provincial ignorance and taken wildly out of context.

"No, Vald, it's just one of my more brilliant ideas to bring the heir to the throne of the kingdom of the most dauntlessly puerile meddlers in magic known to wizardry into a vault full of potential disastrous magical artefacts."

No, the only explanation was some nefarious foreign incursion. One so nefarious in fact that such confounding weapons had to deployed.

"Havi you're the most powerful wizard I've ever met, and the greatest authority on magical meddling that I'm ever likely to meet. If it is, as you say, so very dangerous for me to be in here, then I'll go see to the castle's defences."

Although, only one weapon seemed to have been knowingly deployed. The other had apparently deployed himself, and even d'Ontasque couldn't find any way of construing such a transparent mission of … loyalty as being part of some great plan.

"Absolutely not."

Not that he doubted the all-reaching and benevolent power of the Empereur – May He Live for Manyfold Generations – but d'Ontasque was beginning to have reservations about whether even the best laid of imperial plans could hold against the power of such … loyalty.

"You don't want me here, but you don't want me to go?"

D'Ontasque eyed the emergency bucket and briefly considered dunking his head in it helmet and all. Distraction, he reminded himself, was not a force to be taken lightly.

"What I don't want you doing is going off somewhere in a princely pout."

In conclusion, d'Ontasque thought with furious concentration, an insidious foreign power had cursed Vaala as a prelude to an invasion of the very heart of the Empire, but the Empereur – Divine Be His Divinations – had already anticipated the plot and dispatched a powerful, if eccentric, sorcerer to deal with the evil enchantment.

"I. Do. Not. Pout."

He was overlooking something, he knew. Something was missing and, understandably, under the circumstances, he'd forgotten to take it into account.

"I can see that."

D'Ontasque shifted his weight and absently stroked his moustache – it was coming along nicely which was gratifying. Sergent d'Ontel had assured him that it in no way resembled a ferret napping through his nose. It really did lend him an air of dignified authority if he had to say so himself.

"Oh, look, a box of chocolates!"

Authority! That definitely had something to do with what he was missing, he could feel it in his water.

"Vald!"

Let's see now … the chain of command was still intact. His humbly heroic men were out in force diligently guarding the clean-up effort. D'Ontel was diligently writing up one of his extremely succinct reports. He, of course, was here diligently guarding his men from undue cleaning.

"And me without my breakfast. Maybe there're some of those nut things in here."

Furthermore, clear and precise orders had definitely been given. Madame's request was still ringing with great clarity and precision in his ears.

"Put. It. Down."

Seigneur sorcier had not so much given orders as given the impression that anyone who didn't do as he instructed was a complete idiot who didn't deserve to live. In the fanged face of Forces Beyond That Which Normal Men May Wot Of, the tone had been almost comforting and obeyed without question.

"Why? What's in it?"

As for seigneur chevalier … d'Ontasque realized he was idly tapping the bucket with his foot and stopped. Weeeellll, that **was** what nobility was for, n'est-ce pas? He'd always known it to be so in a the-sky-is-blue-the-grass-is-green sort of way except that after a few years' observation one didn't actually expect them to be that truly blue and green all the time, or even most of the time.

"His lordship."

It was disconcerting and all the more so because it shouldn't have been. Disconcerting, that is. Just because you held something as Truth, it didn't mean that reality had any business in going and being like that.

"You put Cavanel in here?"

"Just so he'd be safely out of the way."

Still he couldn't help but feel that he'd forgotten something amongst all the quickly averted horror and mayhem.

"Isn't it a little small?"

"No it's like the Votive Vortex – it's bigger on the inside. Don't shake it so much! You'll disturb the truffles."

D'Ontasque gave his head a little shake. There was really no need to get hung up on details when an international and, quite possibly, inter-dimensional conspiracy was clearly taking place on his watch. He had bigger fish-headed creatures to fry.

"The truffles? They're dangerous, too? I thought they were some sort of lich- what do you mean like the Votive Vortex?"

Possibly, there was even a cover-up, d'Ontasque thought with a slight, dark thrill. It was unimaginable that a foreign influence could have gotten this far into the the Empire – at its very front door in fact, he amended humbly – without inside collaboration.

"The truffles themselves aren't too bad but if they shift around too much it'll awaken the box's guardian nymph and she can be quite dangerous when roused."

"Roused?"

D'Ontasque grinned evilly. He'd never trusted those puffed-up gate guards.

"That box is one of the few remaining Pernicious Mollifier Selections. They were created centuries ago by the Sorcerer Hall Hehn Peqd for his mistress, the High Prietress Hali Illitaitd. Legend recounts that she was a terminally vindictive chocolate lover and that the box will drive any man that dares enter it mad for a few days and fearful of the sight of lace ever after."

"Gosh, must be those doilies they always put in these things. So these are ancient mystic runes on bottom, then, and on each side."

"Vald."

"It's alright, I'm sure Cavanel will be fine as long as he's on his best behaviour with this nymph lady."

They put on airs, but those gates really guarded themselves. They had been created by the greatest magical minds in the Empire. No nefarious force could get through without getting fried into oblivion. Unless …

"Vald."

"The vortex orb thing, Havi."

D'Ontasque almost giggled – those gate guards would get such a barracks cleaning when the curse was lifted. They must have found a way to fake the pass seal that only a Sorcier Impérial could grant.

"I told you – the Votive Vortex feeds on trapped magical energy to sustain itself. There were so many creatures in here the Vortex's curse must have gotten a boost and simply kept casting itself within itself. It's a very rudimentary form a magic called Recursing – even a mediocre magician could manage it."

"But we defeated them all and that god-cloud so what captive magical energy is sustaining it now? It would have to be hugely powerful to keep the orb this … big … "

Ah, mystery solved and – he let himself take a peek into the here and now – without any apparent need for the bucket. In fact, the vault was unnaturally quiet now that he dared to notice.

"The source of the the magical energy is irrelevant."

"I would never question your expertise in mystical matters, Havi."

"Thank you, Vald, that's very gratifying to hear."

D'Ontasque humbly retreated to the safety of his doorway. High-level discussions were not for the likes of a lowly officer.

"So to break the curse you must … "

"Trace the curse's source codex to the wizard that originally cast it and beat the snot out of him."

"Havi, I couldn't agree more! Together, we can break any trap wide open."

"Vald- "

"You don't want me here."

"Of course I want you just … not in here!"

"You're absolutely right – close-quarters combat should always be avoided. Capitaine!"

"Seigneur?" d'Ontasque saluted with a clank and winced as icy droplet ran under his chain mail.

"To the entrance hall! Bring your men for there may be untold horrors to be faced."

"Oui, seigneur. Will petticoats be needed?"

"I should think not – they're far too difficult to fight in."


	7. Fearsome Symmetry

The problem was Vald, Halvir was absolutely certain of it. The Votive Vortex was being sustained by Vald's nigh infinite demonic energy – little wonder it was so abnormally large. That left the obliteration of the Vortex's maker as the only way out, and that inconveniently meant finding the cretin's location first.

Now, considered in the context of the whole totality of time and space, the distance between two places in the same realm at the same instant was practically non-existent. Whilst most might feel the full magnitude of their own insignificant when confronted with the grand expanse of all that has ever been and could ever be, the core of all wizardry was a general attitude that no matter how big that expanse happened to be there was never quite enough room for one's pressed toad collection. Halvir had taken to it naturally from an early age – his collection had been the envy of all his classmates – traversing space-time thresholds with the ease with which non-mages went to the privy.

However, since the expanse of space-time was so very expansive, finding one particular spot at one particular moment was akin to finding that very interesting book that you really want to take to the privy and that you could have sworn was around here somewhere. Halvir usually had any amount of privy-worthy books on hand so this had never really, practically or metaphorically, been a problem he'd had to deal with, but now he found himself without his library and with just enough magic to summon a sheet of toilet paper.

There was no way around it – he'd have to get help.

"O Yellowe Daemon of the Aee P'hy, heed my call!"

His intonation rang in the suitably impressed hush of the entrance hall for a beat too long before he heard a crackle and the bored voice in his ear, "Thou hast reachèd Thee Yellowe Daemon of the Aee P'hy, how'st may'st thine unworthy servant connecteth thee today?"

"Spare me the protocol and trace the ethereal signature of this Votive Vortex to its maker."

"I shall have to scry the location. Pray holdeth fo-"

Halvir, with sublime effort, unclenched his jaw, "I abjure thee, O Yellowe Daemon of the Aee P'hy."

He sensed the unseen spirit's surprise, "Since thee does thine undeserving servant the rare, nay, **unprecedented** honour of asking, O Great Wizard, I can but forthwith obey."

Normally he wouldn't have to ask at all, but he needed the little magic he had left to summon the time bug to breakthrough to the Vortex's maker and let Vald finish the job. Vald had taken to the plan with all the keenness he seemed to have for any opportunity to "swing some righteous sword," as he had put it, but Halvir himself was of two minds about it all. It really was the only way and once upon a time, he wouldn't have given it a moment's thought to putting anyone between himself and unknown harm, but now, well, it wasn't that he doubted Vald's skill, it was just that he'd have preferred to have more magic on hand in case something went wrong like having to put Vald in the way of the harm which he was so imprudently keen to get in the way of.

Around him, the prince deployed his toy soldiers with altogether too much enthusiasm. Inside his ear, the Daemon hummed an unnecessarily cheery tune.

He tried to keep his supreme irritation with it and, mostly, with himself off his face. What a moron he had been, so caught up in finally having Vald, pure and unadulterated Vald, all to himself without idiotic curses and demonic influences interfering, that it didn't even begin to occur to him that the enormous source of the Votive Vortex was in fact Vald all along. He glanced at the the turbulent grey light through the windows – the damn dome was even reflecting Vald's moods. It was so obvious now that he wasn't letting longing and hope and other toxins cloud his judgement.

Still, none of that mattered now, Halvir resolved as he shoved self-recrimination and pride aside. Until the curse was broken, all that mattered was protecting Vald, and if that meant a platoon of star-struck guardsmen and simpering spirits, than Halvir would just have to accept their presence until the more pressing annoyance had been eradicated – preferably with one very well-aimed fireball.

* * *

The problem was Havi, Vald was absolutely certain of it. The magical source of the vortex-thing had to be enormous, Havi had said, and Vald couldn't think of anything more magical than Havi. How could Havi himself not see that? Maybe he just didn't want to admit to having fallen into such an obvious trap and that Vald had been right about that, or maybe – this was the possibility that Vald by far preferred even though it meant that Havi would never have to acknowledge that Vald had been right and that he had been wrong – Havi just had so much power that he didn't even notice the vortex's drain.

Having formed up the Capitaine and his men into the most tactical positions he could devise, Vald took a moment to study the wizard. Havi looked as cool and composed as ever, but Vald wouldn't let himself be blinded by that impenetrable air of supreme confidence anymore. For all his power and talent, Havi wasn't invulnerable – Vald knew that all too well – and needlessly putting him in harm's way would ultimately defeat the greater purpose. It stood to reason – Vald would already be dead without Havi and, furthermore, Havi was the only one capable of breaking the curse. Therefore, the prince himself was currently more expendable than the wizard since Vald couldn't live without Havi in any case. At least, not until the curse was broken.

He felt himself inadvertently yielding to the pent-up energy he now felt at times like this and forced his body to be still. Unnervingly, that just brought the world into unworldly focus: the unnaturally static air in the entrance hall, every single fragment of shattered marble under the soles of his boots, the guardsmen's fear and some sort of humming he'd not heard before. It had never been like this before the curse – this must be what predators felt like in that coiled moment before they unleashed death. It was an unholy mix of anticipation and dread, but they fed on each other rather than drowning each other out as reason dictated they should. Instead, that bit of himself that was still himself was drowning, and he would be of no good to anyone then.

How fortunate he was to have found his anchor just when he most needed him.

Vald frowned and realized he'd been absently swinging his sword in a tactfully widening circle of guards. Good, he needed them to be alert. The hells only knew what would be on the other side of Havi's portal. They would be needed to keep Havi – and everyone else in the castle, Vald pointedly reminded himself – safe.

* * *

The solution, much to Capitaine d'Ontasque's surprise, was **not** the removal of all women as he'd always believed it to be. He would readily admit to being out of his area of expertise in this situation, but surely everyone knew how this went, non? Knight meets damsel, damsel meets distress, knight gallantly rescues damsel from distress, and they live happily ever after the end. Similarly, knight meets sorcerer should theoretically lead to quite an effective mêlée-caster tactical set-up, but the signals he was managing to discern distinctly pointed more towards the former scenario while having all of the accoutrements of the latter and were being further muddled by a conspicuous lack of damsel and a distressing surplus of gallantry.

"Under no circumstances is he to come to any harm," had been clear enough as far as orders went. It was the having been given said order twice from separate sources that lent the "he" a certain ambiguity. The unspoken "or else you'll answer to me," however, had been entirely unambigu-

_Swish._

The Capitaine tried to swallow without doing anything as provocative as moving a muscle. All other considerations where forgotten as Seigneur Vald's sword silently, silkily and very emphatically took up that particular bit of time and space that currently contained d'Ontasque, and now very definitely made up d'Ontasque's whole world.

It was a dark and menacing world, and d'Ontasque knew in that frozen instant what the prey felt like. From the moment he'd seen it, he'd tried to avoid looking that sword in the eyes it did not in fact have. It did not suit its wielder at all and, somehow, underneath the visceral fear was an irritation with that detail. Seigneur Vald clearly possessed as pure a heart and purpose as you could hope for from nobility – even if the focus was a bit unorthodox, at least it was willing and obviously reciprocating – and that damned blade had no business in his hands. It looked like it should be making lewd suggestions to torture implements in scream-filled dungeons while slaked its thirst on the blood of virgins. In short, as Sergent d'Ontel had put it, it **boded**.

Daring a glacially slow glance up in the fervent hope that the noble chevalier would take pity on a humble guard capitaine, d'Ontasque hit his own personal dread event horizon and, for what would have been a heartbeat were he still in possession one, thought he'd finally met the horrible sword's evil eyes. _'Slitted and yellow,'_ he thought dully as a mouse that was about to become lunch.

Seigneur Vald turned away and d'Ontasque slumped – still coming to terms with his continued existence as an intact and breathing entity – as Seigneur Halvir snarled what sounded like, "No, I will not have him call you! Get me the location **right now** , or I'll drain you white, you yellow git!"

Then the entrance hall broke out into legs. Technically, they were attached to a giant centipede, but d'Ontasque's keen powers of observation were feeling too fragile to make any further contributions at this point. The Capitaine only hoped it had wiped all of them, or Madame would get extra Moody. The rest happened so quickly, d'Ontasque only caught it between rapid blinks of increasing incredulity.

Seigneur le chevalier rammed his sword in the last intact marble pillar, caught seigneur le sorcier in what looked to be a positively devouring embrace then vaulted on to the centipede's back, yanking his sword from the pillar before disappearing through the portal which shrunk into nothingness with an electric snap just as seigneur le sorcier cursed, incinerated the length of his own hair binding his hands behind his back and let loose a gout of fuchsia flame which neatly reduced the aged oak entrance hall doors to ash.

The Capitaine gave a slow, vague nod – he had been absolutely right about the power of distraction, and he finally understood what Tommas, Rychard and Harrold had been going on about. He wished whatever it was that dwelt on the other side of that portal the best of luck.


	8. Once Upon a Time

"You."

Gileh turned slowly from his bubbling cauldron and focused on the sword point aiming at his throat out of the gloom then, after due consideration, up the black length of the heavy blade to the remarkably steady hand holding it and into furious slitted yellow eyes.

"Your Highnessss, I'd bow …" he let it hang there and smirked at the snarl it elicited from the other end of the sword.

Vald could not have been more disgusted if he'd landed face-first in a midden, but he also knew he could be much more enraged then he currently was.

 _'Heavens, hells, anywhere in-between, please don't let the demon awaken!'_ he desperately prayed in what he could only hope was the privacy of his own head. Havi wasn't here.

"Ah, but Your Highnessss is here without your … 'companion'?"

That was good, Vald tried to remind himself ignoring the leering quotation marks. That, at least, was exactly as he’d planned. Gileh's one visible mad eye had widened in a grotesque parody of innocent surprise. Right, that.

"You set that vortex trap for him."

"Brilliant, wasss it not?" Gileh preened and Vald tried not to stare too long at his jugular, "But you honour ussss with your presence instead."

"Us?"

"Yesssss, my massster should be here shortly," the wizard's tongue snaked out in barely restrained ecstasy – Vald's sword arm spasmed with the effort of not slicing it off, "He sssshall be ever so pleased!"

Vald had not in his life personally encountered many gloaters – kind, good-natured people with armies at their command generally don't – still, he was vaguely aware that it should make it easier to stall until Havi dealt with that vortex-thing and found him.

"It is ssssuch a pity your delicious 'companion' could not join us," that amazingly unforked tongue flicked out again.

**_'Kill.'_ **

_'No!'_

"We really don't need him anymore, of course, but he was **ssssuch** good company. Besides," Gileh eyed him with a calculating pout, "he might still be of sssssome use."

**_'KillkillKILL.'_ **

" **SILENCE!** " Vald's bellow was so loud he thought it made the sword resonate. He distantly felt every muscle in his body clenching with the effort of not following through on the demon's imperative.

"You're doing a surprisingly good job of restraining yourself when it's obviously ssssuch hard work," Gileh observed with soothing solicitude, "Why not reward yourself and just let go for a moment? You deserve it after being **ssssuch** a good prince for **sssso** long."

Vald's eyes narrowed. Insincere fawning he was familiar with. Admittedly, it had taken him over a decade to figure it out even after some circumspect tutelage from his nanny and then much exasperated expounding from his parents to discern the insincere from the sincere and comprehend why anyone would bother saying things they didn't mean. His mother's meticulous diagrams, Vald recalled, had boiled down to: "You have power that they don't, and they want to use your power through you." Sweat was getting in his eyes. He didn't blink. What a simpleton he'd been.

 _'If I don't use it, It will use me, but staying Me_ ** _is_** _the challenge. Otherwise, Havi won't be able to find Me, and I certainly don't want him finding the …_ ** _Other_** _Me,'_ Vald grimaced, _'If he even could before They make use of the Other Me until there's no Me left.'_

"Or has His Highness already had his … 'treat' for being sssssuch a good boy? Is that why you're ssssso docile?"

**_'KIIIIILLLLLL!'_ **

_'Havi.'_

The blinding rage lifted so quickly, Vald swayed from the shock of the release. He looked right back into that deranged twinkling eye, "Yes." Yes, he had to stay himself so that there was a Vald for Havi to find.

**_'…Yes.'_ **

It finally seemed dawned on Gileh that his audience wasn't with him. Ignoring the tip of the dreadful blade a breath away from his throat, he tilted his head and studied Vald for a long moment before his face crumpled in horror.

"YOU'RE PURI-!"

And the darkness broke-out into a multitude of legs.

* * *

"-fied?"

Halvir whipped around mid-curse to incinerate whoever had dared speak, but all the guards just ducked and dared little more than a whimper.

"Oy, hedge idiot!"

"Halrein?"

"Well done, you remembered my name," congratulated the voice inside his ear, "As I was saying, how much of the magic that you've been … siphoning from Vald have to be purified?"

"What does that matter now? Vald's gon-"

"Do we have to go through this step-by-step?" Halrein's tiny voice sounded like he was enjoying himself immensely, "Very well then-"

"LOWER THE DAMNED BARRIER!" Halvir roared and the guards stopped whimpering and stared at him as though he gone mad. Madder, that is.

"I was just getting to that," Halrein continued his infuriatingly patient lecture, "I can't because the Votive Vortex's stupidly enormous energy source is still in there."

"And I told you," ground out Halvir, "that Vald is gone from in here."

"Lost him again, hmm?"

An innocent balustrade erupted into a shower of rose petals. Halvir tried to breathe as rage choked him.

"So why don't you turn off the tap on the Vortex and go fetch him?" the lilt in the final words turned a shattered pillar stump into a vase overflowing with lilies and one single daffodil. The guards fled.

"I. Can't."

"Your problem, Halvir, is a severe lack of self-confidence. What you have to do is look deep into the mirror, tell yourself that Vald needs you and then look deep down into yourself at that little squishy place that daren't speak its name and that I'm frankly surprised even exists, accept all the new magic that you've absorbed from Vald that evidently didn't need as much purifying – for reasons that I'll let you figure out for yourself – as you assumed it had, shut off the flow from that source to the Vortex and bring him back."

"Of. Course. Vald. Needs. Me. I don't need you to tell me that, idiot. He'll always need me!"

"Always?"

"What?"

"It's this thing we call lo-gi-ic, but I guess you missed that class," Halrein continued in a sing-song voice for the hard-of-thinking, "So you use your enormous powers to break Vald's curse and then-"

A sudden midnight dropped over the castle as the engulfing walls of the barrier went black.

"You're not exactly princess material, y'know," Halrein continued relentlessly. Halvir starred blindly into the darkness, deaf to the panicked screams echoing from all parts of the castle and his own laboured breathing.

"And Vald isn't philan-"

"Shut up, already. **I know**."

With a flick of his proverbial wrist, the wizard killed the magic flowing from within himself into the Votive Vortex, summoned his time bug and sent it tunnelling through time and space towards the prince.

* * *

Vald made his second most impressive entrance into Vaala castle, his boots unsteadily hitting something hard and much abused, and his head hitting something hard and much longed for an instant later. He smiled tiredly and waited for the ringing echo of Gileh's shriek to subside.

"Hey."

"Hey," Vald more felt then heard Havi voice.

"I knew you'd breakout of the trap and find me," he happily plastered himself against his wizard and let the world right itself around him as he contentedly waited for the next vibration.

"Yes," a beat then a sigh, "thanks to you," warm lips landed on top of his head, "Always."

"VAAAAaaald!" Rulca dopplered through the remains of the hall and hit Vald mid-back where he sniffed, glared at Halvir and burrowed between them to wrap around Vald like a fluffy, hostile chastity belt, "You poor, poor dear! Are you alright? Did the stupid, moronic, good-for-nothing, idiot wizard take advantage of you? There, there, your Rulca is here, just hold me until you feel better."

"Uhm, I'm fine actually," that didn't seem to be enough for the bunny, "Thank you?"

"I'm fine, too," Halvir snapped.

"Well, that good. Isn't that good, Rabbit?" Halrein swaggered in looking very pleased with himself. He smirked smugly and gave Halvir the traditional old schoolmate salute, "Twit."

"Twat."

Wizards stared at each other coolly until a snivelling from the rubble drew all eyes and had them widen in dismay at the pathetic puddle of dissolving magician – robes in disarray and shattered mask clutched like a security blanket.

"My massster will-"

"VOTRE ALTESSE!" Mars shout rang through the hall before all his aghast companions could stop him. He grasped Gileh around the shoulders and exulted, "Mon Prince Abel!"

"I've finally got it, and you'll never believe the plot twists!" Mademoiselle Veritelle announced triumphantly as she swept down the surviving section of staircase and stopped dramatically in full storytelling pose before her horrified audience, "'Once upon a time, a cursèd prince sought the aid of a powerful wizard …'"


End file.
